


State of Nature

by toider_totes (orphan_account)



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Dark Knight, Joker - Freeform, The Joker - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-08-15 14:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8059618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/toider_totes
Summary: The ZPD realizes that in the wake of the Nighthowler crisis, the patterns of crime in a very seedy part of town begin to change. Judy and Nick are swallowed up in the mystery, and end up entwined very deeply in something that they don't fully understand. Nick's instincts and Judy's smarts are the only weapons they have to get out, but will it be enough? Or will a madman's plots and conspiracies eventually consume the city, and them with it?Cover art, by TheWyvernsWeaver: http://i.imgur.com/zrewAQR.jpgJoker/Zootopia crossoverPremise by /u/Biohazarddallas, authored by myself.





	1. Routine Questioning

**_T_ ** _o do injustice is, to the executor, good; to suffer injustice is, to the sufferer, evil; but it is said that the evil is greater than the good. And so when mammals have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice—it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of mammals to do injustice. For no mammal who is worthy to be called a mammal would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did._

_-Platopus, The Zoopublic_

 

“No, sir, you were actually going over 70 for three blocks after the exit ramp.”

“But there weren’t any signs! And it was an empty one-way!”

Judy sighed. Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of driver’s ed course? Wasn’t that what the DMV was for? “Yes, but the standard city speed limit on side roads is 25. And there were two signs that read “Children At Play” which don’t exactly state the speed limit but should be a pretty solid indicator that you shouldn’t be going 70 miles per hour. If you want, you can dispute the ticket in court,” she continued, leaving out the fact that she’d enjoy the overtime money from a court appearance, “and the judge can decide. But this is the ticket I’m issuing you.”

“Fine. I suppose I’ll see you in court then,” the raccoon huffed. Judy ignored it and made her way back to the squad car, where Nick waited patiently.

“Judging by the ear-to-ear grin on your face, it looks like he was a real charmer,” he said as she got in.

“It looks like there may be some overtime in my future,” she replied, sneering faintly. As she pulled the car into the road, she squinted tightly in an effort to protect her eyes from the late evening sun.

The fox laughed. “Alrighty, well if there is, then coffee that morning is on you.”

“No comment,” Judy said, finally abandoning any effort to actually find humor in having to write speeding tickets all day.

Nick’s smile slowly evaporated. “I mean, it’s better than having serious calls to respond to, if you think about it.”

“Yeah, in a way. But now I have to spend all this time sitting in a cruiser waiting for speeders, and that means having to talk to _you_.”

Nick laughed. “Jeez, that really does sound awful.”

* * *

 

 _I’ve lived in the Bogs for months,_ Edward told himself, _and nobody’s caused me any trouble. Everything is fine_ . He was fighting very hard to resist the urge to look back at the two wolves that had seemingly been following him for blocks. He’d passed them on the way from his friend’s apartment to the train, even given them a courteous nod. Why was it, then, that after a few seconds they had turned to follow him? _Were_ they even following him?

He stopped to wait in an open space. The sun had gone down, but the streets and sidewalks were still populated with bystanders. Nobody hurts anyone else in a crowded place like the middle of 12th Avenue, even in the Bogs.

Edward made no effort to look casual. He stopped, turned towards the street, leaned against a wall, and waited. The wolves, with no signs of communication between them, approached slowly. Their pawsteps were quiet, and like Edward, they kept their gaze straight ahead, not even pausing to look at each other. They came up right in front of Edward…

...and passed without incident. Edward sighed with relief. Of _course_ everything was fine. He inwardly laughed at himself for worrying. So relieved (and newly confident in his safety) was he that instead of continuing up the street on his normal path, he turned into an alley to take a shortcut.

As he turned the corner halfway through, he found the same two wolves walking down the alley towards him from the other end.

* * *

 

Nick watched the tenement halls roll by as Judy drove them to the apartment the call had come from. Not much had changed in the past few years. Even with the windows up, he could tell that even the smell was the same. And in today’s heat, that smell was only amplified.

Judy broke the silence, “Clawhauser told me about these sorts of cases last week. They’re getting more common, and they’ve all come from very different perps but it’s always the same M.O. Intimidation always seems more important than actually getting any money from the victim.”

“Always pred-on-prey?” Nick asked.

“Yeah. We get reports of muggings by large prey all the time here, but they don’t show the same signs as these other ones do.”

Nick grunted. He wasn’t exactly surprised, but this also wasn’t exactly something to be expected from the Bogs. Organized crime was more of a Tundratown sort of thing, or even the Canal District, but here? In _the Bogs_? This was a place ruled by two bit crooks and small-time criminals. The whole neighborhood was governed by its own chaos. It certainly wasn’t gripped by racism; even during the protests and riots of Bellwether’s short term as mayor, things in the Bogs continued as normal: muggings, robberies, a few assaults or batteries here and there. He might have conned his way out of there early in his career, but the Bogs were his people, and he knew them well. Even if he didn't like them.

One good thing about the Bogs, Nick supposed, is that you could always expect it to be messy. _The evil you know, as they say_.

“This is the place,” Judy said, pulling into a parking spot right in front of one of the several crummy apartment buildings on the block. Nick could tell that it was supposed to be white, but given the fact that it was built in the Bogs, it just looked gray, even with the hot sun shining brightly on it. He stepped out of the car and waited patiently for Judy to come around from the other side.

Nick paused to take in his surroundings. He looked up through his aviators, returning the gaze of all the tired eyes looking down at him from the fire-escapes-made-balconies. These old tenements were torture to be inside of on any day in the summer, not to mention in the middle of a heat wave like this. The mammals peppered all over the sidewalk, sitting on the curbs and steps, watched him and Judy walk up to the grey building that housed the mammal that had made the call. Nick noted that they were all prey animals.

The stairs creaked and groaned, their wood swollen in the humidity. The hallways and stairwell were empty. The paint on the walls was chipped, and the two officers could see veins of mold weaving themselves under the paint all through the corners and ceilings.

“304. This should be it,” Judy said.

Nick’s mouth hung open, and he softly panted in an effort to cool himself down. “You’d think they’d at least get window AC for the hallways or something. I feel like I’m in an oven right now.”

“Put your game face on, Nick. We’re here to work.”

“Secondary objective: glass of ice cold water.”

Judy rolled her eyes and knocked on the door. They heard some floorboards creak inside, and faint footsteps, but beyond that there was no response. Nick decided to make the announcement.

“This is the Zootopia Police Department, we received a non-emergency call from this address some time ago this morning. Anyone home?”

At that, Nick and Judy could hear more footsteps, a brief pause, and then the deadbolt sliding out of place. The door opened to reveal a middle-aged platypus looking absolutely terrified.

After some formalities and introductions, the two officers got down to business. They asked the standard questions: the location of the crime (an alley off 12th Avenue), descriptions of the perpetrators (both grey wolves, young), any weapons used (just a single small switchblade), if any names, colors, or distinct markings were present (none that the platypus could remember), things of that nature. Once Judy and Nick were satisfied (this seemed to be a fairly routine investigation), Judy asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to add, Mr. Carpenter?

He looked down for a moment, silent, then visibly steeled himself.

“Yes, officers, there is. They also told me something else, and they said they’d be back for me if I told the cops.”

Judy and Nick looked at each other. They knew about the intimidation factor of this sort of mugging, but this was something new.

“They said I should remember the name MacLeod, and that if that name ever came up to me again, I was to do what they said, no matter what, or things would get worse. They specifically said that they wanted me to make an accurate police report, but I was not to mention the name MacLeod.”

Judy and Nick both furrowed their brows in focus. This was something neither of them had encountered before. Judy, in all her studies, hadn’t heard of something like this, and Nick, for all his time on the streets, had never encountered anything of the sort.

Judy wanted to be sure that the platypus felt safe, “No worries, Mr. Carpenter. We at the ZPD are very good at what we do. Was there any indication that they would know who you are, or that they had investigated you as a potential mark ahead of time?”

The platypus shook his head. Judy knew that she needed more answers, but she couldn’t think of the questions.

Nick jumped in, wearing an expression Judy didn’t recognize. “Mr. Carpenter, how many friends do you have in the Bogs?”

“Not many. I was out visiting one of them, and I hadn’t seen him in some time. My job is a night shift, as a janitor, so I don’t have a lot of work colleagues either.”

“What about family?”

The platypus smiled a fake smile, the kind that pulls the mouth wide but doesn’t show itself in the eyes. “My brother, of course. He’s done very well for himself. He lives in the middle of the city, probably the only platypus in all of savannah central. Went to his head, though, and he doesn’t like to spend much time with his lower-class kin from the Bogs,” he said, avoiding eye contact with the two officers in front of him.

“So what do you do in your free time? Do you have a standard routine?”

“Well, sure. I don’t do the same thing every day, but there isn’t much variety in my free time.”

“Was there anything you did in the weeks leading up to the visit to your friend’s place that was in preparation for it? Maybe sending him a letter, or dropping something off? Was it a party?”

Carpenter was clearly surprised by Nick’s sudden tone of urgency, and Judy would have liked for him to sound more relaxed, but she could tell that the fox was on a roll, and she knew to sit back and watch the gears in his head turn. She could feel that she was going to learn something very soon.

“Well, yes, it was a small party for a friend of his that he’d invited me to, and I’d dropped off some folding chairs he’d asked to borrow. Why do you ask?”

“The more information the better. Sometimes you don’t realize it’s relevant until much later in an investigation. You did this how long beforehand?”

“A couple of days, I suppose.”

Nick stood up straight and placed his paws in his pockets. He was done with his line of questioning, and he looked over at Judy to let her finish things up.

Judy, ever the cordial professional, wrapped things up, “Thank you very much for your help, Mr. Carpenter. And especially for your bravery with that name, MacLeod. We’ll look into it. And we’ll have a squad car posted outside your home, starting as soon as possible.”

The platypus, for the first time during their visit, gave a genuine smile. “Thank you very much, officers. I appreciate the peace of mind that gives me.”

With a few more formalities, Nick and Judy were out the door. Once they were back in the cruiser, Judy decided to start prodding Nick’s brain: “So what was that intense questioning all about?”

Nick furrowed his brow again, the same expression he wore as he was asking the questions. “Look, this is just a hunch, but it’s a strong one. I think this guy was marked. Far ahead of time. He’s got no _real_ friends, no close family, no regular acquaintances. These wolves marked him, followed him, learned his routine, and when they saw an opportunity, they struck.”

“It was outside his routine, though. Going to a friend’s party? Not normal behavior for this guy, and even he was perfectly open about that.”

“Exactly. That’s what worries me. The one thing out of the ordinary here was that name: MacLeod. These wolves are going to want something from him in the future. When you make that kind of promise, you only do it when you’re holding all the cards. You never, ever do that to someone you don’t understand. He was followed, researched, evaluated. When they saw a departure from the norm, that’s when they hit. Because doing it then would throw us off--it couldn’t make sense for this to be so premeditated that they would do it during something new. They would do it at some specific point on his predefined trail, if they were any good.”

“So you think they’re sloppy?”

“Exactly the opposite, Carrots. Whoever these guys are, they’re experts. And I think if we start looking into those muggings with a similar M.O., once we specifically mention the name MacLeod, we may see a trend.”


	2. Chapter 2: The Tower

_Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered._

_-Jose Saramago_

 

"Where do we start?" Judy asked Nick as they drove back toward the precinct. 

"Only one place  _to_ start, Carrots. We need to start revisiting other victims whose cases match this description."

"So how do we do that? Nobody else mentions MacLeod."

"We use the same thing that's kept me at the top of the game for the past ten years, of course!"

"...and that would be?"

Nick smiled. "Gut instinct."

Judy rolled her eyes. Just as she opened her mouth to reply, Clawhauser's voice came on the radio.

"Car 4-4, dispatch, you still at that tenement in the Bogs?"

Nick took the radio off its hook and spoke into it, "Dispatch, 4-4, negative, we're on our way back home. Why?"

"We got a call just a minute ago of a 10-10 right in that tenement. Any word of that from you?"

 _A fight?_ Nick mouthed to Judy, furrowing his brow. Judy shrugged.

"Negative again dispatch, you're sure it was the same tenement?"

"10-4, how do you kids feel about going back for seconds?" Judy smiled seeing Nick 

"Just when I think I've had my fill, you treat me once again, Clawhauser. We'll be there ASAP," Nick said. He could already feel the heat from inside the building start to creep up on him.

As soon as they arrived, Nick got the wrong feeling. The heat was, of course, the same as it was 20 minutes ago, but there were no more mammals cooling off out on the fire escapes and nobody on the sidewalk or steps for the whole block. Nick couldn't see through the windows because of the sun's glare, but he had a feeling the blinds were pulled down in every window. Judy noticed it too.

"Must have gotten ugly."  
  
"Mammals around here don't even get out of bed for stabbings in the hallway. This is different. Someone came through that people were scared of," he said, reaching for the radio and bringing it to his muzzle, "dispatch, car 4-4, what unit was that call from?"

"207, just below the one you visited. They said the noise was above them."

"Roger that." Replacing the radio on the hook, Nick looked back up at the third floor windows of the building. "I don't like the look of this, Judy."

"Well, best not wait too long. Keep your head on a swivel, pawpsicle man."

Nick smiled and they got out of the cruiser and entered the building. 

"All the doors are closed," Nick said.

"What?"

"Last time all the doors were wide open or at least cracked, to circulate air. Every single one of them is shut now."

Judy nodded. She kept a paw on her taser, unbuttoning the holster without drawing it. The two carefully moved up the stairs, being sure to keep a sharp eye on all their corners and each door they could see. Once Nick got a peek of the third floor, he whispered, "Our platypus friend's door is wide open." He drew his taser. Judy did the same.

Nick kept his weapon raised, edging towards the open door. He couldn't hear anything but the fans running at full speed in the units around him. The wind rushed out of the door into the hallway, rustling his fur. He finally approached the door, and readied up right at the edge of the frame.

He tapped his thigh, and subsequently felt Judy tap her hand on his hip twice, signaling that she was ready. He steeled himself, readied his finger on the trigger, took a deep breath, slowly exhaled, and ran in, shouting "Police, on the ground now!" He immediately scanned the left side of the room for any mammals, while Judy raised her taser and scanned the left side. After about a second, Judy said "Clear!" while Nick said the same.

Nick's heart was still beating in his throat, but now that it was clear the apartment was empty, he was only confused. 

There were obvious signs of a struggle, things strewn about the living area. The only thing that was broken was a ceiling light, whose glass cover was smashed on the ground below it. Nick holstered his taser. Judy grabbed her radio and called Clawhauser, "Dispatch, 4-4. Apartment is empty with signs of a fight. Call an ET unit down here, I think we've got a possible abduction."

She looked over to Nick, who was honed in on the coffee table. The books that had been on it were scattered on the floor, and in their place there was a small, shiny card about the size of a regular playing card. Nick's expression was something Judy hadn't seen since the Nighthowler case. But this time, instead of being accented with fear, she could see his mind racing.

Slowly, Nick pointed at the card, and without looking up, said, "That's a tarot card."

* * *

 

Combing through the entire building to ask questions didn't take them very long. They didn't even bother to split up; as expected, each tenant had a strange case of amnesia about any sort of loud noises for about a half an hour before and after the call. Even when Nick's patience waned and he grilled them about being inside a hot apartment on a sweltering summer day, they simply told him, "Heat just doesn't seem to bother me or mine, officer," even as their tongues lolled out of their mouths and their fans ran on full speed. 207's inhabitant in particular, who had called about the incident, seemed to forget her interaction with the 911 operator entirely.

After the last tenant shut his door on them, Nick sighed. "Welp, now that the formalities are done, maybe the evidence technicians can tell us something."

"Who knows, Nick. In the Bogs, even bullet holes and DNA samples can suddenly forget about gunshots and perp descriptions," Judy said. Nick laughed, then sighed again.

Up in the newly empty unit, behind some police tape, the ET, a stoat that stood shorter than Judy, told them what he could find. 

"This blood is from a nosebleed, I can tell just by looking at it. The most likely thing is that someone took a nice hit to the face and spit out the blood that immediately started to flow, but it'll be hard to tell until i can test it for saliva. Other than that, there's nothing of significance here. No weapons, substances, anything that suggests foul play on the tenant's part. This guy's really on the up and up. No real signs of a struggle other than the books swept off that table and the hole in the wall that came from the knob of the front door hitting the wall too hard. It's hard to tell for sure whether that's brand new. Then there's that weird card that was on the table. Can't make heads or tails of that. It has eight sticks on it, and the back is just a bunch of arrows pointing away from a centerpoint. Doesn't seem like much, but it's pretty outta place, so I put it in with the rest of the evidence to go back to the precinct."

Nick looked again at the card. "It's a tarot card," he said, "I know that much. Not sure what the arrows on the back mean."

Judy matched Nick's gaze, and asked, "What actually is a tarot card?"

"They were used for fortunetelling way back when. Like,  _way_ way back when. Mostly by foxes, and any other species people think of as shifty. Weasels, otters I think as well. My mom had a deck she used to let me play with."

"What about the arrows on the back?" the stoat said, "is that a tarot thing? Or an ancient fox thing, even?"

"No, I've never seen that before. Beats the hell outta me. Did you find any decks of tarot cards? Crystal balls? Trippy looking quilts?

Judy spoke before the stoat could reply: "I would think just the opposite, Nick. Look at the bookshelf. Classical literature, and a good old Catholic Bible. Catholics and fortune tellers don't mix."

They were interrupted by Wolford's voice at the doorway, "Sorry I'm late, folks. Guess we're a little shorthanded today. What have we got?"

Nick told him the story of the platypus' call, the "MacLeod" threat, the near-instantaneous disappearance, the strange quietness as they came on the scene, and the predictably forgetful neighbors. Then the ET repeated what he told Nick and Judy, and Nick added his knowledge of the tarot card. "I remember that's called the eight of wands, but not much else. Each card has a specific meaning, but I can't remember what they were."

"You think it could have been deliberately chosen?"

"It must have been. Everything else about this is just... off."

Wolford nodded, adding, "I'm catching the same scent, Wilde. I think we've got something else on our hands. You said you two were on your way to the station to check up on other cases matching this?"

Nick and Judy nodded.

"Go ahead and do that for me. I'll wrap this up. Delgato will be there busy with some work from earlier today, I'll let him know you're coming. He'll help you guys out."

"Got it," Judy said, and they left the unit for their squad car.

* * *

 

The wrong feeling Nick had since they arrived at the tenement the second time had developed into a knot deep in his gut that he couldn't get rid of. Sure, the case was weird, but something was really setting this apart from anything he's ever seen, from either side of the law. On the drive back, he looked up tarot cards on Zoogle to jog his memory, and texted Wolford:

_got it. eight of wands is the card for the "lord of swiftness"_

_-certainly fits this case, i think. doesn't give us much, though, wilde. anything else?_

_i don't remember this myself but here's something interesting I read: "it often signals entry into a new phase or project, which stands a good chance of success"_

"hmm" was all Nick got in reply, and it mirrored his thoughts. But behind that puzzlement he could feel the knot in his stomach get worse.

He wanted to ask Judy, but he didn't know how to put it into words... _Does this case make you feel weird?_ isn't a very investigative or scientific question. Judy was a calculating officer, who wanted hard facts and clear-cut evidence. She was as much a scientist as she was a cop.

When they pulled into the station, Delgato was waiting by Clawhauser's desk in reception. He waved to Nick and Judy and they walked together to the detective's desk.

"Wolford filled me in. 'Lord of Swiftness', huh? Seems like some cryptic edgy intimidation bullshit to me. Tough or not, these amateurs in the Bogs aren't smart enough for this kind of stuff."

"Yeah, I thought so too, but it just rubs me the wrong way. Like I told Judy, crowds in the Bogs don't give a second thought to a stabbing on the sidewalk, much less a kidnapping or a scrap in the hallway. But we got there even after the perps left, and it was a ghost town. Sweltering heat like that and all the windows were closed and doors shut tight. That doesn't happen in the Bogs."

Delgato eyed Nick.

"I would know, detective," he added, "I grew up there."

The lion nodded. "So what could this card thing be?"

"I've got no idea. But whatever it is, these people are scared of it."

"Well all we've got so far are these other cases that have been stacking up. Intimidation type stuff. We've already combed through them and we can't find anything other than the common stuff, and we've been aware of it for about a week."

"What about MacLeod? I think if we go around asking about that name we'll get something new."

Delgato shook his head. "No chance. The only time we've seen that name, we only got a kidnapping out of it. I'm not putting anyone else in danger."

"It's not enough to suggest a pattern. There's nowhere else we can go. Is there any other lead you have?"  Judy said.

"Unless we have a resident tarot expert on call," Delgato said, giving Nick a look out of the corner of his eye, "there's nothing to do right now."

"They had the element of surprise. Like you said, these guys are amateurs. Wait in an unmarked car, get the jump on them, and we can nail them in the act, or scare them off altogether," Nick argued.

Delgato frowned. "Look, Nick, you've got good instincts. But there are other avenues here. I'm gonna exhaust them all before I risk someone else for this case. I'm not even convinced enough that they're connected--this kidnapping is so much bigger than those intimidation muggings that I'm gonna focus on that. I'll talk to Bogo about keeping you guys on a beat in the Bogs, but for now me and Wolford will handle it."

Nick was about to shoot back a retort when Judy said flatly, "Alright Detective. Let us know if we can help you," and gently pulled Nick away.

Nick gave Judy a death glare as they walked down the hall. "What are you doing?"

"Don't piss the detectives off Nick. They like good help, but you're still a beat cop. Bogo made that clear to me after the Nighthowler case, and I won't see you get on anyone's bad side by being too gung-ho. We're still the rookies."

"Rookies my ass. I could spend weeks teaching that cat about the Bogs."

"He knows it. These mammals aren't proud. Let them do their jobs, and we'll do ours."

Nick went quiet. He didn't want to admit it, but Judy was right. Part of reading people was understanding the group dynamics, and after a few days of watching the office interactions, the invisible lines in the sand were as clear as day. Bogo, he realized, wasn't mad at Judy because she was a rookie, or even because she was a bunny cop (at least, not mostly). He was mad because she was a rookie who belonged on a beat with a field training officer, not snatching major cases from his Investigations Division, a task force built from the ground up to tackle those cases. Luckily for Judy, her success saved everyone from embarrassment.

It wasn't about politics, it was about respecting the Chief, and the structure he created. And if there was any mammal in the precinct (hell, the whole city) who commanded and deserved respect, it was Bogo. 

So Nick and Judy got back to their beat, taking the regular calls from Clawhauser. But the case would keep eating at Nick until fully two days later, when he was called into Bogo's office.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break. Shouldn't happen again, at least certainly not for that long. Appreciate any feedback you might have. More feedback probably also means faster/more updates. The third chapter should be fairly soon after this one but i can't promise anything.
> 
> I promise I won't abandon this.


	3. Nick Wilde: Fortune Teller

_This ain't no place for no hero_  
_This ain't no place for no better man_  
_This ain't no place for no hero  
_ _To call "home"._

 

It was obvious Bogo wanted to talk about the kidnapping case. Nick was totally in the dark about any details on the case, and deliberately so--when Nick asked, Wolford said he didn't want Nick to get anything, because they may need fresh eyes down the road. Nick wasn't sure what that meant, but he felt like it was some crock of shit meant to keep him out of their way. He respected their jurisdiction, but on the other hand, he wanted to know what was happening in his home. There was a disease in his neighborhood, and he wasn't sleeping easily not being able to even know what the ZPD knew about it. That said, he respected their wishes, and kept his nose out of their case, specifically avoiding any gossip or news about it. If he wasn't in the ZPD he could take matters into his own hands, but those days were over. Nick would have to wait, but he knew deep down that his patience would only last so long, and who knew what Judy would have to say about him trying to get involved. She was clinical, but by-the-book, and that got in the way of his frustration. "Just stick to your beat, and if they want you in, you'll be in," she'd say, and although Nick knew she wasn't trying to be dismissive, it only fanned the flames of his internalized anger.

So when he got into the station, and Clawhauser said Bogo wanted Nick in his office first thing, Nick dropped his bag and jacket at his desk and went straight up to the Chief's door. When Bogo says first thing, he means  _first_ thing. 

When he entered the office, Nick's suspicions were confirmed by the presence of detectives Wolford and Delgato. He noticed that they looked like zombies. This case must be keeping them pretty late at the office.

Delgato started first, "Alright, Wilde. I know we told you nothing, but given your reputation, I'm sure you picked up some crumbs. What do you know?"

"Nothing, Detective. I wanted to get this right. You said fresh eyes, you've got fresh eyes. Haven't heard a single thing since we worked the kidnapping scene."

Bogo jumped in, "No need to lie, Wilde. We need to know the facts. I know you wanted in on this, so just tell us what you've heard so we can get started."

Nick looked Bogo right in the eyes, "Nothing, Chief. I'm not lying. You know I'd own up if I'd been snooping."

Bogo stared back at Nick, then nodded. "Right, then. Let's get started. Wolford?"

Detective Wolford came forward with a file, much thicker than Nick would have expected from this case. Some serious information must have come through. 

"We've had some more kidnappings, seemingly directionless. But they're always of victims that were involved with the muggings in that pattern we saw before. There were two the night after our first case, and three more last night. That adds up to six in total, and we've got 11 more muggings that match the modus operandi perfectly. There are at least two dozen more muggings that seem to be similar but aren't perfect matches. Who knows how many there are that weren't reported."

Nick thumbed through the file. A list of all the victims. All loners, all intimidated by some nondescript predators. Just like their platypus from earlier in the week.

"Every one of them was like a smash and grab. Loud and messy. Calls from the neighbors. Always at home, never at strange hours--that is, never late at night, never early morning, almost never during work hours."

"Calls from the neighbors? Every time?" Nick asked.

"Yes," Delgato answered now, "every time. Always anonymous, too, so we can't get much help there."

Nick snorted. "You're not kidding. Makes no sense at all. Is it otherwise like the first time? Everyone's doors all sealed up, windows closed?"

"Tight as they can be. If anything, it's hotter than it was Monday, so again, there's no reason for it. These people are boiling in their own fear."

Nick finished thumbing through all the victims, and asked the detectives, "any more tarot cards? Mystical shit like that?"

Delgato and Wolford looked at each other. Wolford leaned back against the wall. Delgato walked up to Nick and handed him another file, along with a bag with some cards in it. "We had them dusted for prints. Nothing. We've been using photos, but as our...resident tarot expert, you get access to the real things. Congratulations, Wilde," he said flatly, clearly less than impressed at Nick's new informal title.

Nick smiled sarcastically at the lion, and took the deck out of the bag. In anticipation of this, he'd brushed up on his tarot with his great aunt's old deck and her book on tarot readings, and now, he wondered if that title  _should_ be official. He started thumbing through the cards, asking the detectives, "Have you already gotten these looked at? You know what they are, what they mean?"

Delgato snorted and started to speak, but Wolford held up a paw, "No, we haven't. The tarot cards have been our lowest priority in terms of pursuit."

Nick nodded. He mentally rattled off the meaning of each card-- _change, works, valor, ruin, interference_ \--and noted a few things about the ones that seemed significant.

"Do you notice anything about them? Any trend?" Wolford asked.

"There are tons of ways you can read tarot. It's all about juxtaposition, which cards are close to which. But they're supposed to be shuffled and then drawn at random, and then you lay them out as you draw them into a certain organisation. You look at each card and note it's meaning, and you then interpret what the message is according to where each card is and, like I said, which card is how close to which. It's all a bunch of classic gypsy mysticism, and the reader will tailor the reading to the audience to maximize how much money she gets from return visits. Most readers even know it's a scam, of course. So I don't really know how to read all these. There's a bunch of meanings to each card and some nuance to each meaning."

"Like what?" Wolford asked.

"Well, take this one for example. This is the ten of swords. It represents the Lord of Ruin, but it's not just a matter of bad luck ruin. It's supposed to be about your internal feelings. It's about failing to realize what you can be, and falling short of your true potential. It can also predict a traumatizing and dramatic upheaval of whatever the order is in your life, and then you might read the cards around it to see what you can do to react to this change."

"Sounds very scientific," Delgato hissed.

"Well, yeah. It's mysticism, Detective. It doesn't really matter whether it's real. It matters what's going on in the other guy's head," Nick gave back calmly. At that, Wolford and Bogo looked at each other as if surprised.

Bogo came in for the first time, "So then can you guess anything about what's going on in this guy's head?"

"Well, I can take potshots, but the huge variable is who the reading is for. Whether this guy thinks he's drawing cards for his own tarot reading or for  _our_ tarot reading or for the victims' tarot reading or for the Bogs or even the whole city."

"Talk about this with respect to the city. Drawing cards for the city as a whole," Wolford said. Delgato gave him a hard look. Wolford looked back, but neither of them said anything. Nick realized there was something else going on, but he gave his honest answer.

"Well, alright. Sparing you the nitty gritty details of each individual card, it's obvious that intimidation is the major goal here. All of these cards together are pretty much as strong a suggestion as you could get for something big coming--you would be expecting a massive change, something catastrophic. If the order that we got the cards is significant, it only strengthens that reading. The first two next to each other, the eight of wands meaning swiftness and the two of disks meaning change indicate that there's a big new project being undertaken whose goal is to cause some change, especially considering the need to not stagnate, and because of the suit of the second one being the disks, it would pertain to the order of the natural world, not of one's self.

"The third one, three of disks, means works. Some sort of goal that you'll need to put a lot of your energy towards. the two cards around it--the one about change before it, and the seven of wands after it, meaning valor--again emphasize that need for change. The city needs a new change, and it will be difficult and require a lot of effort. It's also going to be scary. People will be afraid, and they need the courage--the valor--to do it anyways. The last two are the most important. The fifth one is the ten of swords, and it stands for, like I said, ruin. The last one is the eight of swords, and it means interference. It means that there is some painful and chaotic tampering with the natural flow of things--the natural flow of some kind of energy. Something is out of place in the city, something's wrong, and it needs to be remedied. What the card is close to is supposed to reveal the source. Since it's the ten of swords, it would mean that the source of problems in this city is the failure to realize its true self. Zootopia could be something more, something different, but it's failing at that goal, because it is failing to understand its true nature.

"So the overall message this guy might be trying to send, if these cards are meant for the city, is that he's gonna be the guy to bring about a gigantic painful change, turning this city into its true self, and it will be difficult, but he and the city must have the courage to soldier on."

Bogo and Wolford shifted in their positions. Delgato paced the room behind Bogo's desk, whispering to no one in particular, "Well I'll be damned. These guys really are crazy beyond anything we could have expected."

Wolford looked at Nick intensely, not breaking the gaze as he said, "Wilde, this is very important. How did you come to that conclusion? What makes you think of all that from a pile of six cards?"

Nick shrugged. "You guys know I used to be a scam artist, and you know foxes have a reputation. My aunt used to read tarot to make her money, and I learned all about it. I never bought into it, but it was interesting to me. She gave me her book and deck, and I read it every now and then to remember her. Tarot reading is very qualitative, but it's very formulaic. With the exact same draw of the same cards in the same order, most readers will say the same things in different ways."

Wolford then took a single sheet of paper out of his back pocket, and handed it to Nick, saying, "This is the letter we got with the sixth kidnapping. It never references the tarot cards, or that mysticism stuff, or anything. But it sure feels like what you said."

Nick didn't know what to say to Wolford, so he just looked down at the letter. It was written in beautiful, ornate calligraphy.

> This city has a sickness that turns a mammal's life into a lie. This is the Great Lie that is the order imposed on the city by the powers that be, unwittingly held up by each and every mammal in Zootopia. Each mammal is at the same time guilty and not guilty of this Great Lie, and when they are told of the truth, they will reject the Great Lie. We will expose the Great Lie to the people of this city and in time they will come to understand.
> 
> As the executors of the Great Lie, the Zootopia Police Department must be the first to go. They are too ingrained with the Great Lie and will not see the truth, this much is known. As such, they must be sacrificed with extreme prejudice. The Great Lie, the false reconstruction of the natural order, will be destroyed, and the simple food chain will reemerge. The first phase is in motion, and soon, the second phase will be in motion as well.
> 
> -APEX

"Apex?" Nick asked.

"We're pretty sure it refers to "apex predator", a predator that has no natural predators of its own," Delgato said.

"So this is a predator-supremacist group?"

"We think so. We're dealing with something bigger than a gang, Wilde, and they're centered in the Bogs."

Nick gritted his teeth, and growled quietly. His home was no place for these...crazies. He couldn't stand by anymore. Nick wasn't in the ZPD to read tarot cards. He was here to protect the city. He needed to be on this case "Chief, I--"

"You're already being put on the case, Wilde. We need a native. Me and Delgato haven't even worked that many cases in the Bogs, let alone ever lived there," Wolford said, adding with a tinge of humor, "not to mention you seem to know your fortune telling."

Bogo nodded. "You and Judy get to work together on this, and even though she's got seniority, you're in the lead. You'll report to Wolford, and you'll work together on this. It's important you're not loud about this, Wilde. We know what kind of panic this can cause. And I'm giving you a loose leash on this. The two of you are getting an unmarked cruiser for this. Go out in plainclothes and talk to some old buddies if you need to. You won't investigated for having a conversation, but no favors. I'm not to proud to tell a greenhorn that I need his expertise, and that's what's happening Wilde. I want you to put your full attention to this. Canvas the Bogs whatever way you think is best, and find a hole in their secrecy. There must be something somewhere."

Nick nodded. "Thank you, sir. I won't let you down," he said, and looked at Delgato and Wolford, "any of you."

After he left the room, Delgato said, "You really think our fortune teller can give us anything?"

Wolford sat down in the seat that Nick just left, exhausted. "I don't know. He's smart, but we're out of options here. He knows people in the Bogs, and there's a whole underworld of information that cops can't get through to. He might be a cop, but his friends might still like him enough to help him out."

Bogo sighed, "Well, he doesn't seem likable enough for that to work. But he might dig up something."

* * *

 

Judy folded her arms. "So we're detectives now?"

"Not quite, carrots," Nick said, organizing his bag and going through his desk.

"What's happened in this case so far that they need a pawpsicle hustler? Are they two hundred dollars short on payroll?"

Nick laughed, but kept at his packing. "Something like that, I think."

Judy sat down on Nick's desk, watching his face as he packed. "Seriously, Nick, what the heck? 'We're on the kidnapping case' isn't a lot of information. Is that all they gave you?"

"Definitely not. I'll explain in the car. We have an unmarked cruiser for this, and I need to go to my apartment for a minute. We also have to go to yours. We're changing into plainclothes for today."

At that, Judy simultaneously became excited and frustrated. She tried to interrogate Nick for more information while also trying to hide the ear-to-ear smile on her face: "Nick, what's happening? Why are we in plainclothes? What's our assignment?"

Nick stopped his rush for a moment to look Judy in her big purple eyes. "Judy, this case is something big, and they wanted someone who knows the Bogs. Bogo gave me a lot of wiggle room to run my own operation, and you're still my partner. We're gonna ask some questions, and I need your scientific brain on this. I'll fill you in when we're in the car. Get your stuff, and let's go."

Judy nodded, picked up her things from her desk, and joined Nick on the walk towards the precinct garage. Nick's mind was flying at a mile a minute, but he knew exactly who he wanted to talk to first. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this was slow. Things will start picking up soon.


End file.
